In ‘Coco,’ Death Is the Point

You may remember the first time you saw a movie character die. There’s probably an entire generation still scarred after a stampede killed Mufasa in “The Lion King” or Little Foot’s mother died trying to save him from a Sharptooth in “The Land Before Time.” And no matter how many times I watch it, I still tear up in the first minutes of Pixar’s “Up,” when Carl loses his beloved wife.

In Pixar’s latest, “Coco,” there is no escaping death. Most of the film takes place in a colorful afterlife inspired by the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos. It’s where Miguel solves a long family mystery and meets many of the relatives who passed away before he was born. It is both a happy and tragic place: a simultaneous celebration of loved ones’ lives and a lament for their loss.

Death has shown up in animated movies for decades, but only recently have they gone beyond using tragic losses as devices in character development. Now death has moved from a plot point to the subject of the movie, and in “Coco,” we see a different version of the afterlife, one without pearly gates, clouds, angel wings or halos.

Because the freewheeling medium of animation isn’t constrained by reality, animators have long had the ability to play with the concept of death. Walt Disney could easily make skeletons dance in the cemetery. In the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes shorts, Wile E. Coyote could be crushed by a boulder and spring back up to chase the Road Runner. By making the morbid comical, it isn’t so frightening. You can laugh in the face of death.

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“The Book of Life” helped introduce young viewers to different cultural beliefs.Credit20th Century Fox

Moving into longer features, Disney adapted folklore and fairy tales that tended to take darker turns than the lighthearted shorts that made the studio famous. Yet these longer movies were unambiguous: simple morality tales of good versus evil. In “Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty,” for instance, love always conquers death, while death feels like a logical endgame for wicked queens and henchmen. The act of dying usually happened offscreen and was rarely mentioned by the stars, who moved right along to their happy ending.

The comfort of knowing that good characters would always win is partly why the death in “Bambi” (1942) remains so effective — even if it also takes place offscreen. Early on, the mother is almost angelic, patiently welcoming other animals to meet her new baby. But eventually she sacrifices herself for his safety. It’s a shock because you don’t anticipate anyone good dying in a Disney movie, and it became a lesson in tragedy, that death does not always come for a reason and that our loved ones are not immune from death.

Gradually, some animated movies became more explicit about loss and its effect on those left behind. In “The Lion King,” as in “Bambi,” a parent dies trying to save a child. Only in the 1994 movie, Simba watches his father die and sees his lifeless body afterward. The scene doubles as a character-building moment for Simba and introduces the idea that death is a natural part of “the circle of life.” His father appears to an older Simba later, a sign that our ancestors never truly leave us. “The Lion King” is surprisingly frank about survivor’s guilt, remorse and reflection. It’s more honest about the experience of death than most Disney animated movies before it.

In 2014, Jorge R. Gutiérrez brought the city of the dead to the big screen in the colorful “The Book of Life.” The earlier film shares some themes with “Coco,” including its Día de los Muertos inspiration, but is very different in style and story. The main characters are puppets and aren’t quite as introspective as the characters in “Coco.”

Still, both movies serve a dual purpose. They open discussions about death with younger audiences and introduce them to the beliefs of a different culture. “Coco” incorporates many references to Día de Los Muertos and Mexican culture. A bridge of marigolds, the flower associated with the dead in Mexico, ties the worlds of the living and the dead together. The faces of the dead resemble sugar skulls, traditionally placed on gravestones on that day. During a climactic scene, the matriarch, Mamá Imelda, sings a folk song called “La Llorona,” a reference to the traditional ghost story of a bereaved mother who kidnaps children to replace the ones she lost.

Día de Muertos is not Halloween, and death is not meant to scare us. It’s a time for families to celebrate life and the memories of those no longer with us. Just about every culture has come up with an explanation of where our souls go and what the afterlife looks like. There are many other cultural stories like “Coco” still left to share and discuss.